Electronic toys and games have become extremely popular recently primarily because of their relatively low cost. This low cost is directly attributable to the "state of the art" electronics, i.e., integrated circuits, etc., which are presently available. However, this state of the art electronics has been applied generally only to games and toys, and to the inventors' knowledge has never been applied to crossword puzzles, which have always had a large group of followers. An electrical crossword puzzle was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,863,931, however, this device utilizes letter blocks which are insertable into word squares on a game board. If the proper letter block has been chosen, electrical contact is made therethrough with the game board. The device disclosed in the foregoing patent differs from the invention of this disclosure in that the device utilizes electrical rather than electronic components, is not programmable, and does not have a memory.
Because of the popularity of crossword puzzles and the lack of any type of electronic crossword puzzle devices, it has become desirable to develop a portable, inexpensive, electronic crossword puzzle device which has a number of puzzle programs contained therein so that the operator thereof can choose any one of a number of puzzles to solve.